The purpose of this reading is really about engaging with what already exists to help inform our opinion – what do we think? Is it difficult to understand/read? Why didn’t enjoy reading it? What is the tone? And what does the tone say about the paper? Unknown to me already by having a preference or an opinion of a paper we are already defining ourselves as a researcher (O’Rielly & Smith, 2022). And to develop as a researcher digesting the literature we are reading and writing down what we think of a piece is part of developing your own positionality (hence what I am doing right now), we will not form a position until we in fact begin writing, therefore it is almost like a continuous circle of reading and writing.
I read two very conflicting papers one from Hannah Snyder (2019) on Literature reviews as a methodology and one from Eileen Honan and David Bright (2016) about how we can write a thesis differently. I am going, to begin with, the Snyder (2019) paper as this is the one that made more logical sense to me. Hannah Snyder works as a professor at the department of marketing at BI-Norwegian School of business, with research interests in service innovation, customer creativity and co-creation. She has published a handful of articles on these topics as well as literature reviews coming from a social science point of view (Hannah Snyder, no date). My initial idea of a literature review was that it is used to gather all the different literature you have been reading and to put it into context the topic you are exploring and where you place your research. What I did not realise is there are different forms of literature reviews depending on what the aim of the review is for. Snyder (2019) discusses systematic, semi systematic and integrative reviews.
Systematic: Designed initially for medical science and can be explained as a research method. The aim of this type of review is to identify all empirical evidence that fits with the specified criteria to answer a specific question or hypothesis, to enable a full awareness of existing research to compare and contrast existing data (Snyder, 2019, p.334-335).
Semi-Systematic: or narrative review approach is designed for topics that have been conceptualized differently and studied by various groups of researchers within diverse disciplines and that will hinder a full systematic approach (Wong et. Al, 2013 in Snyder, 2019, p.335). And to review every single article that could be relevant would be impossible (Snyder, 2019).
Integrative: is similar to a semi-systematic, but usually has a different purpose with the aim to assess, critique, and synthesize the literature on a research topic in a way that enables new theoretical frameworks and perspectives to emerge (Torraco, 2005 in Snyder, 2019, p.335). They are normally used to address mature or new and emerging topics, not to cover all published articles ever published but to combine perspectives and insights from different fields. The result of this type of review should be an advancement in knowledge and theoretical frameworks rather than an overview. One key element to this type of review we must not forget is we need to be transparent in how each article was chosen and how the integrative (combining 2 or more things) topics have been defined (Snyder, 2019).
Currently, for my type of research, I think an integrative review would be most appropriate, although Snyder (2019) defines this approach as more complex and requires more skills as a researcher, although it seems the most appropriate for an arts-based research project. My particular area of research, speaking quite broadly at the moment would be – 3D garment simulation, fit analysis and alternative mode of delivery using mixed reality. Snyder’s (2019) approach is very clear to me with defined steps to follow, and following these steps should give a good grounding for the beginnings of a literature review. My next step is to narrow down my research area, identifying keywords ensuring to answer the points below…
Questions to consider:
- Is there a need for a literature review in this area?
- What type of litrature review would be most helpful and would make the greatest contribution?
- What audience will most likely be interested in the review?
Then:
- A search strategy for identifying relevant literature must be developed.
- This will include key words (word and concepts related to research topic) to search and databases.
- And deciding on what inclusion and exclusion criteria – year of publication, language, journal etc
- Provide reasoning and transparency concerning all choices made.
Moving on to Honan & Bright’s (2016) paper, I found this a lot harder to grasp and thinking about some of the questions Smith & O’Rielly (2022) mentioned which I discussed at the beginning, I think for me it was the language which was a turn-off. I found their way of writing very complex with lots of big words which I was not aware of their meaning, therefore I found this piece very difficult to fully grasp the concepts they were trying to portray. With a little help from my peers in class, the overview of the paper was to not always stick to the mould, Snyder (2019) is very concise in her delivery there is a process you should follow which I like and relate with very much. Honan & Bright (2016) on the other hand are encouraging us to break the rules, not following pre-set structures when academically writing but to be free with our thinking and define our own paths. Honan and Bright (2016) speak a lot about major and minor literature, from what I gather major language is what is expected and what hear in the media, but minor language is something new, creating a new way of writing, designed and owned by the writer highlighting different ways of thinking or perspectives. An example given of how to write in a minor language is Milieu mapping (no beginning or end you can start in the middle and still get the same meaning) or writing in song lyrics to get your point across. This piece although written very academically and formally, probably because of the aim of publication, is highlighting the importance of experimenting and including many types of data and outcomes. For me, the concept is rather more conceptual although I can still see the importance of this type of outcome generation although I feel this does not come so naturally to me.
Who are Honan & Bright?
References:
Hannah Snyder (no date) BI Business School. Available at: https://www.bi.edu/about-bi/employees/department-of-marketing/hannah-snyder/ (Accessed: 26 January 2022).
Honan, E. and Bright, D. (2016) ‘Writing a thesis differently’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29(5), pp. 731–743. doi:10.1080/09518398.2016.1145280.
O’Rielly, J & Smith, C. (2022) ‘Literature Review as a Methodology’ [Lecture] 21/22 Masters Project. UAL 21 Jan
Snyder, H. (2019) ‘Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines’, Journal of Business Research, 104, pp. 333–339. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.07.039.
